“The United States needs to wean Israel off its welfare dependency and end the unconditional commitments that enable self-destructive behavior on the part of the Jewish state.”

The German foreign minister has said recent NATO maneuvers could further inflame the security situation in eastern Europe. He has called for dialogue with Russia ahead of an upcoming NATO summit in Warsaw in early July.

"What we should avoid today is inflaming the situation by warmongering and stomping boots," Steinmeier told Bild in an interview to be published Sunday.

"Anyone who thinks you can increase security in the alliance with symbolic parades of tanks near the eastern borders, is mistaken," Germany's top diplomat added.

RAGA associates Ed Lozansky and Jim Jatras have already made a substantial conceptional contribution to US foreign policy debate in their article: “Hello, Lenin!” Three components of america’s misguided foreign policy"

By: Edward Lozansky and Jim Jatras, June 20, 2016Vladislav Krasnov graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in history and anthropology. He has a Master’s degree in Slavic languages and a Ph.D. in Russian literature from the University of Washington. He taught at numerous institutions, including the University of Texas (Austin), Monterey Institute of International Studies, the Hoover Institution (Standard University), etc. He was formerly a visiting scholar at Sapporo University, Japan.

Krasnov is the author of Solzhenitsyn and Dostoevsky: A Study in the Polyphonic Novel (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1980), Soviet Defectors: The KGB Wanted List (Stanford: Hoover Institution, 1985), and Russia Beyond Communism: A Chronicle of National Rebirth (New York: Westview Press, 1991). He is the president of RAGA, Russia & America Goodwill Association. This is our first in a series of interviews. The second interview will be on Solzhenitsyn and his relation with Vladimir Putin.

Alexis: In a recent article published by RAGA, Chas Freeman, who served in the United States Foreign Service and the State and Defense Departments, argues that: “The United States needs to wean Israel off its welfare dependency and end the unconditional commitments that enable self-destructive behavior on the part of the Jewish state.”[1] Do you agree with him?

Krasnov: Yes, I do. Ambassador Freeman’s illustrious and varied career in the State and Defense Departments, in the Pentagon, etc., made him a natural candidate in 2009 at the beginning of Barak Obama’s presidency to chair the National Intelligence Council, which merges intelligence from sixteen U.S. agencies into National Intelligence Estimates.

It was very unfortunate that his promotion was blocked by the Israeli lobby which could not stand his criticism of Israel.[2] Thus, the country was deprived of the BEST INTELLIGENCE it needed to sail in the turbulent waters of global politics. This was bad for the US, the Middle East, Europe, and Russia.

The article you cited, “U.S. Policy and the Geopolitical Dynamics of the Middle East,” convinced me that it was bad for Israel too. Freeman delivered his speech before the Center for the National Interest last month. I found it so singularly important that I translated it to Russian and posted, along with the English original, on the site of Russia & America Good Will Association.

After all, RAGA’s mission is to promote, first, better relations between the US and Russia; then to strive for peaceful resolution of all global conflicts. People’s diplomacy is especially needed now when our diplomats abandon their vocation in favor of boastful bombasts often leading to actual bombing.

You noted Freeman’s main thrust: “The United States needs to wean Israel off its welfare dependency and end the unconditional commitments that enable self-destructive behavior on the part of the Jewish state.” As American citizens, we bear the tax burden for the armaments that the U.S. have supplied to Israel for generations.

Americans also suffer great losses on the battle fields of the Middle East and elsewhere in the “global war on terrorism” that the U.S. helped to precipitate.[3] More than a million Iraqis have already lost their lives.[4] Trillions upon trillions of dollars have been completely wasted.[5] The net result is that we have not achieved greater security for either ourselves or the Israelis.

Alexis: Freeman moves on to say that US foreign policies are based on “ideological fantasies and politically convenient narratives rather than on inductive reasoning and reality-based analysis.”[6] Do you agree?

Krasnov: I could not agree more. Currently the United States has replaced the USSR as the ideological iconoclast, except, instead of “class struggle” and “world revolution” to overthrow “capitalist exploitation”, the United States preaches “free-market economy”, “democracy”, and “Western standards of civility.”

This ideological obsession allows us to meddle in domestic affairs of any country whose government we dislike. We do it by guile when it works, like in Russia during the 1990s, by bombing as in Yugoslavia in 1999, by a full scale invasion like in Iraq in 2003, by hybrid warfare like in Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, and by drone intimidation just about anywhere.

Indeed, US politicians have abandoned “reality-based analysis” and indulge themselves in “ideological fantasies and convenient narratives” to justify their actions. We know how badly such fantasies ended for the USSR.

If in the old Cold War, the USSR was indeed espousing a different value system based on militant atheism and persecution of religion, since 1991 Christianity is being reborn in Russia and religious freedom reaffirmed throughout the country.[14] It is all the more ironic and potentially tragic that the West does not recognize that Russia could be an ally in the advancement of peace and civilized order in the world.

The one area where the two countries must work together is the Middle East. Freeman makes it clear that the problems cannot be solved unless Israel comes to the realization that its best chance for survival is not an unquestioned military domination, including a nuclear war blackmail, but accommodation with its neighbors, first of all, the Palestinians.

Both Russia and the United States have high stakes in the area. The USSR was a heavy contributor to the armament of the young Israeli state, and Stalin was one of the first to recognize it in the false hope to put its Zionist leaders under Communist control. The United States under Truman managed to swing Israel back under the U.S. patronage.

Currently, Russian Jews who immigrated to Israel during the 1990s constitute the most substantial block of voters. It seems that only a joint pressure of the US and Russia could move Israel’s political elite to abandon ideological or quasi-religious fantasies of right-wing Zionists in favor of fact-based analysis that clearly dictates a peaceful compromise.

[14] I have translated into Russian Patrick Buchanan’s article “Is Putin One of Us?” in which he suggests that Russia, rather than modern Western secularists, stands for traditional Western values.

All statements in this report are an opinion of the author. Act at your own risk. Russia & America Goodwill Association (RAGA) is not responsible for the content of the article. Any views or opinions presented in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RAGA. Any liability in respect to this communication remain with the author.